Cut And Run

CARLA NEGGERS

Cut and Run

For Joe, Kate and Zachary—

and special thanks to Bill and Aunt Dini.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Prologue

Delftshaven, The Netherlands

Alone in her small dressing room, Juliana Fall took a handful of ice chips and rubbed them on her cheeks and the back of her neck. She was so unbelievably hot! But it was her own fault. She’d left her long, pale blond hair down and had chosen a dress of heavy winter white silk—and the tiny seventeenth-century stone church had been her idea. It was packed with people. Her manager had fought her choice for weeks. Why make her Dutch premiere in a church with limited seating capacity when she could have had the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam? Was she crazy? No, she’d said, just adamant. She’d refused to explain that the church, in the old Delftshaven section of Rotterdam, was the one in which her parents had been married. It was the truth, but it sounded too sentimental for a rising international star in the highly fickle, competitive world of concert pianists.

Even at twenty-three, she was scrutinized not just for how she performed, but for what she wore, said, did—for everything. Already she was being touted as the most beautiful pianist in the world. One critic had raved about “her dark emerald eyes, which fill with passion even as she gives her trademark distant smile.” If only he’d paid as much attention to her interpretation of the Mozart sonata she’d performed.

She laughed, wondering what he’d say if he could see her smudged mascara and the sweat that had matted her dress to her skin and dampened her hair.

“Juliana?”

Johannes Peperkamp smiled sheepishly from the doorway. He was her uncle, a balding, gentle old man, tall and all bones inside his ill-fitting suit, with a big nose and a permanent soft, sad look in his blue eyes. He was sixty-six but looked eighty. Until that afternoon, he and Juliana had never met. He’d taken the train from Antwerp, where he was one of the world’s preeminent diamond cutters, and had taken his niece into his arms as if he’d known her all her life. He’d told her he owned all her recordings and liked to listen to them at dawn, when it was quiet. What a change from his younger sister! Wilhelmina Peperkamp was a stout, difficult woman. She lived in Delftshaven, one of the few sections of Rotterdam not demolished by the 1940 German bombings that had led to the capitulation of The Netherlands and the long Nazi occupation. Aunt Willie had been so annoyed at Juliana’s ignorance of Dutch that she’d refused to speak English for their first thirty minutes together. Catharina, Juliana’s mother and the youngest Peperkamp by thirteen years, had sat in quiet humiliation. She must have known—Juliana certainly did—that she was the one being criticized for not teaching her American daughter Dutch.

Juliana recovered from her surprise at seeing her uncle, and the indignity of being caught rubbing ice on her face. But she reminded herself that he was family. “Uncle Johannes, hello, what’re you doing back here?”

“I’ve brought you something,” he said in his own excellent English.

Juliana winced. Now? She had fifteen minutes to pull herself together for the second half of the concert. She snatched up a hand towel as her uncle withdrew a small, crumpled paper bag from inside his jacket. What was she supposed to say? The Peperkamps mystified her, and she wondered if her idea for a family reunion had been a good one after all. She’d already had to accept the mediocre instrument, the lousy acoustics, and, although the church was sold out, the comparatively small audience. But now the Peperkamps themselves were proving to be quite a handful. Her mother was obviously ill at ease with her older brother and sister, whom she rarely saw, and hadn’t had much to say since arriving in Rotterdam the night before. And Aunt Willie was impossible. After getting off to an inauspicious start with her niece, she’d snored through most of the first half of the concert.

And now this.

Johannes thrust the bag at her. “Please—open it.”

“But, I…”

She couldn’t bring herself to argue. Her uncle looked so eager, even desperate. Unprepossessing as his gift seemed, it meant a great deal to him, and with the death of his wife Ann a few years ago and no children of his own, Juliana guessed he was a lonely man. For the first time, she felt the weight of being the last of the Peperkamps. She could indulge him.

With the towel around her neck, she stuck her hand in the bag and pulled out a heavy object wrapped in faded purple velvet. Her uncle’s water blue eyes glittered as he urged her on. She unwrapped the velvet. In a moment, she held in her hand a large, cool rock. But her pulse had quickened, and she lifted her eyes to her old uncle, licking her lips, which had suddenly gone dry.

“Uncle Johannes, this isn’t—tell me this isn’t a diamond.”

The old man shook his head solemnly. “I can’t do that, Juliana.”

“But it’s too big to be a diamond!”

“It’s what we call rough. It has never been touched by a cutter’s tool.”

Juliana quickly wrapped up the stone and stuck it back in the bag. For four hundred years, diamonds had consumed the Peperkamps. They’d entered the trade in the late sixteenth century when Jewish diamond merchants had fled the Spanish Inquisition and arrived in more tolerant Amsterdam. The Peperkamps were Gentiles. Why they’d taken up one of the few trades open to Jews—and dominated by them, even today—remained a mystery. But it wasn’t one that interested Juliana. She considered diamonds ordinary and bland. Even ones like the Breath of Angels, which her Uncle Johannes had cut and was now in the Smithsonian, bored her. An exquisite stone, everyone said. She supposed it was, for a diamond.

“I’m flattered, Uncle Johannes, deeply flattered. But this must be a valuable stone, and I just can’t accept it. It would go to waste on me.”

“Juliana, this is the Minstrel’s Rough.”

“The what?”

A look of anguish, but not surprise, overcame the old man. “Then Catharina has never told you. I’ve often wondered.”

She listened for a note of criticism of her mother in his tone, looked for it in his expression, but saw none. Perhaps he knew as well as his niece that Catharina Peperkamp Fall rarely discussed the first twenty-five years of her life, the years during which she’d grown up in Amsterdam, with her daughter—or anyone else. When Juliana had complained to her father about her mother’s reticence, Adrian Fall had nodded sympathetically, for he too had been shut out from so much of his wife’s early life. But he said that it was Catharina’s past, not Juliana’s or his.

“She won’t approve of my telling you now, even less of my giving you the Minstrel,” Johannes Peperkamp went on heavily. “But I can’t let that stop me. I have a responsibility to future generations of our family—and to past generations.”

Juliana was beginning to question whether she should take her uncle seriously. Was he just a crazy old man? And what she was holding just a hunk of granite? But he seemed so intense, and his guttural accent lent a mysterious quality to his words. She said carefully, wiping her jaw with a corner of the towel, “I don’t understand, Uncle Johannes.”

“The Minstrel’s Rough has been in the Peperkamp family for four hundred years. We—your family—are its caretakers.”

“Is it—” Her voice was hoarse, her hands trembling as they never did when she performed. “Is it valuable?”

He smiled sadly. “It used to be that any Peperkamp could have identified what you now hold in your hand. On today’s scales, Juliana, the Minstrel is a D grade, the highest grade for a white diamond. Few are one hundred percent pure and colorless, but the Minstrel comes as close as any rough can. In the business, we call it an ice white.”

“What will happen when it’s cut?”

“If it’s cut, Juliana. Not when. For four hundred years we’ve guarded the Minstrel’s Rough from that very end. Surprising, isn’t it? A family of diamond cutters protecting a rough from their own tools. We’ve had four centuries to study this stone, and should it ever have to be cut, we know its secrets. I have markings, which I will teach you. They will tell a cutter precisely where to strike in order to preserve weight without sacrificing beauty. But you must understand: the value of the Minstrel lies not only in what it will be when cut, but also in its legend.”

“Jesus, Uncle Johannes. What legend?”

“In 1581, when the Minstrel’s Rough first came to the Peperkamps, it was the largest uncut diamond in the world—and the most mysterious.”

“But that was a long time ago…”

“Not so long. The Minstrel’s Rough is still the largest and most mysterious uncut diamond in the world.”

Juliana’s heart beat faster than it ever did when she had preconcert jitters. “Why mysterious?”

“Because its existence has been rumored for centuries, but never confirmed. What you are holding, my Juliana, only Peperkamps have seen for four hundred years. No one else can prove it exists.”

“Uncle Johannes, I don’t even like diamonds.”

“Your mother’s influence,” he said gently, and smiled. “I understand, but it doesn’t matter. In each generation, one Peperkamp has served as caretaker for the stone. In mine, it was I. In your generation, Juliana—”

“Please, don’t.”

He took her hand. “In yours, there is only you.”

Johannes Peperkamp returned to his seat in the wooden pew beside his two sisters. What a trio they made. At fifty-one, Catharina was still as slim and pretty as a girl, her eyes dark green like her daughter’s, but rounder, softer, and her hair still as pale blond as it had been forty years ago when her big brother had whisked her out on the canals to go ice skating. Johannes wished she would smile. But he understood: she was protective of Juliana, afraid he or Willie would let something slip about a part of their shared past that she’d never told her daughter. And he already had, hadn’t he? The Minstrel’s Rough, however, had not been a slip. He’d planned what he’d tell Juliana for weeks abut had always hoped she’d already know, that her mother had long ago related the story of the Minstrel.

He should have known better.

Averting his eyes from those of his younger sister, guiltily sensing the fear in them, Johannes smiled briefly at Wilhelmina. Ah, Willie. She’d never change! She was as plain as ever with her stout figure and square features, with her blue eyes of no distinction and her blondish hair, never as pale and perfect as Catharina’s, now streaked almost completely white. She was sixty-four years old and didn’t give a damn if she were a hundred.

Willie might have approved of his visit backstage with their niece, but, never one to hide anything, she’d have insisted he tell Catharina. How could he? How could he explain his ambivalence, the duty he felt to generations of Peperkamps coupled with the horror he felt at what the Minstrel’s Rough had come to mean to his own generation—to Catharina and Wilhelmina, to himself? Their father had passed the Minstrel on to him in 1945 under circumstances even more difficult than those Johannes now faced. How could he ignore the responsibility with which he’d been entrusted? He’d had to give the stone to Juliana. There was no other choice.

You could have thrown it into the sea, Catharina would tell him again, as she had so long ago.

Perhaps he should have listened to her then.

And Willie—dear, blunt Wilhelmina. She’d make him tell Catharina and then she’d make him tell Juliana everything, not just what he’d wanted to tell her. What you are holding, my Juliana, only Peperkamps have seen for four hundred years. No one else can prove it exists. They were the words his father had told Johannes when he’d first seen the Minstrel as a boy.

Now they were a lie.

Yet what did it matter? The past was done.

Juliana returned to the makeshift stage and smiled radiantly at her audience, and Johannes felt a surge of pride and admiration. After the shock he’d given her, she’d composed herself and began the second half of her concert with the same blazing energy, the same flawless virtuosity, as she had the first half.

Within minutes Catharina elbowed her older sister in the ribs. “Willie—Willie, wake up!”

Wilhelmina sniffed. “I am awake.”

“Now you are. But a minute ago your eyes were closed.”

“Bah.”

“No more snoring. Juliana’ll hear you.”

“All right.” Wilhelmina sat up straight in the uncomfortable pew, for her a major concession. “But all these sonatas sound the same to me.”

“You’re hopeless,” Catharina said, but Johannes, at least, could hear the affection in her voice.

If the past had not been what it was, thought the old diamond cutter, feeling better, Juliana never would have been born. She’s our consolation—Catharina’s, mine, even Willie’s. And now, through her, not just the Peperkamp tradition but the Peperkamps themselves would continue.

One

Len Wetherall settled back against the delicate wrought-iron rail in front of the Club Aquarian, enjoying the sunny, cold mid-December afternoon. He was a people watcher, and there was no place better to watch people than New York. Here, for a change, he could do the watching; he wasn’t always the one who was watched. He was three inches shy of seven feet tall, an ex-NBA superstar, black, rich, and a man of exquisite taste and enormous responsibilities. He knew he didn’t blend in on the streets of SoHo any more than he did anywhere else. But here no one gave a damn.

People were moving fast, even for the city. Len watched a pink-haired woman in a raccoon coat swing around the corner, covering some ground. She had on red knit gloves and red vinyl boots, and her mouth was painted bright red. Her eyes—

Len straightened up, buttoning one button of his camel wool overcoat. Her eyes were the darkest emerald green, and he’d recognize them anywhere.

“J.J. Pepper.”

When she spotted him, she grinned, her teeth sparkling white against her bright lips. Even in the harsh afternoon light, her eyes were as mysteriously alluring as everything else about her. She came right up to him, stood on her tiptoes, and he bent down and planted a kiss on her overly madeup cheek. His wife, Merrie, couldn’t understand why J.J. wanted to paint up her hair and face like that. “She must be a real light blond underneath that colored mousse she uses,” Merrie had said. “And I’ll bet her skin’s perfect. Why would she want to cover up all that?”

Why, indeed? But Len had learned not to ask J.J. Pepper too many questions. She’d just give him one of her dazed looks, as if they weren’t operating on the same planet, and avoid a straight answer. He’d asked her once how old she was, and she’d said, “Oh—around thirty.” Like she was making herself up. The colored hair, the vintage clothes, the gaudy makeup, and the rhinestones were all a part of her look. They were what she wanted other people to see. Her package. During his fifteen years with the Knicks, Len had listened to everybody’s ideas about how he should be packaged. He’d learned the hard way just to go on and be himself. J.J. would learn, too, sooner or later.

J.J. Pepper had first glided into the Club Aquarian that spring. The place had been open just one year, and already it was one of the hottest nightclubs in New York. Len had opened its doors shortly after his final season as a power forward with the Knicks. His original dream had been to start up his own down and dirty jazz joint, but if nothing else his years on the basketball court had taught him who he was and, maybe more important, who he wasn’t. Down and dirty wasn’t his style, and he wasn’t a purist about jazz. He liked to mix in some popular, some soft rock, some easy classical, turn the musicians loose, and let them do their thing. He wanted his club to have a little polish, a certain cachet. Tall ceilings. He wanted it to be the kind of place where people could have a good time, wear their best clothes, be their best selves.

Looking at J.J. the first time, he didn’t think she’d fit in. She’d had on one of her nutty outfits, a thirties dress and lots of rhinestones, and had plunked herself down at the baby grand, like, hell, baby, I belong here. Right then he’d known she had it, never mind the crazy lavender hair and the feeling she wasn’t quite on the level with him.

She’d started to play, stopped after a few seconds, and turned to him. “Did you know this piano has a muddy bass?”

“That right,” he said, noncommittal.

“I’ll compensate today, but you should have it looked at.”

“Sure, babe. I’ll get right on it.”

Before he could pull her little butt off the bench, she’d started to play. Then he didn’t want to stop her. He’d just stood there, listening. Her technique was awesome. He’d never heard such sounds come out of that piano, damned muddy bass or no damned muddy bass. But she didn’t let go; she held on tight to all the notes she had memorized. He could feel something there inside her, waiting to get out. And when it did—man, he wanted to be there. The walls’d be shaking.

She played three tunes and stopped. She turned around on the bench and looked up at him with those pink and lavender streaked eyes for his verdict. She didn’t seem winded or nervous. Len had the feeling that if he told her she wouldn’t do, she’d just shrug her nice round shoulders and walk off, ego intact.

“Not bad, J.J.” A fake name, he decided. Who the hell would call a kid with eyes like that J.J.? He didn’t believe the Pepper, either.

“Thank you,” she said, polite, but not what he’d have called relieved. She knew she was good.

“You need to let yourself go, put some heat into what you’re doing.”

She frowned, smacking her plum-colored lips together. “Improvise, you mean?”

“Yeah, improvise.” He thought, bub, what’re you getting yourself into? But then he heard himself say, “You can play the early crowds, some lunches if you want. I’m looking for somebody to do Sunday brunch, if you’re interested. We sometimes bring in a classical pianist. You know any Bach and Beethoven?”

“I’d prefer to stick to jazz and popular. When would you like me to start?”

“Tomorrow night.”

“I can’t start tomorrow night.”

“Can’t?”

“I have a previous commitment.”

“You playing another club?”

“No.”

She wasn’t going to explain. “What about Sunday?”

“You want to open me with a brunch?”

“Yeah. Earl Hines you’re not, babe.”

Those high, sweet white cheeks of hers got red. “Okay, Mr.—”

She’d forgotten his damn name. “Wetherall,” he supplied, deadpan. “Len Wetherall.”

She’d never heard of him. Took her two weeks to figure out who he was. Told him she followed hockey, not basketball. He’d dropped the name Wayne Gretzky, but she’d just said, “Who?” It had been another one of those little inconsistencies. They all added up to a big fat lie, but Len had decided if J.J. Pepper ever wanted to level with him, then he’d listen.

Until then, he’d let her be whoever she wanted to be.

“Hey, sweet cheeks,” he drawled now, giving her a slow grin. Her eyes were done up in a glittery gold. “Good to see you. How was New Zealand?”

For a second she looked as if she didn’t know what he was talking about, as if she’d forgotten she’d walked out on him four months ago to go mountain climbing in New Zealand. Then everything clicked and she laughed. “New Zealand was terrific.”

He’d have believed she’d been to Yakutsk just as well. “Bring me back a sheep?”

“Postcards.”

Where’d she pick up postcards? Not in New Zealand, for damn sure. “You ready to play?”

She gave him a wide smile, and this time there was relief in it. “Sure.”

“Then get in there. Later you can tell me about New Zealand.”

“Be glad to.”

The glint in her eyes told him she was having a grand time lying to him. But inside, the late afternoon crowd and the baby grand piano were waiting, and she seemed glad to see them both.

The Dutchman smoked a cigar as he stood alone on the park side of Central Park West at Eighty-first Street. Across from him on one corner was the sprawling Museum of Natural History, on the other, the prestigious Beresford. From his vantage point, he could review the two entrances to the Beresford on Eighty-first Street as well as the one on Central Park West. Doormen in green uniforms with gold braid were posted at each entrance. They didn’t worry Hendrik de Geer, if he needed to, he could get past them. For now, he was only observing.

He saw the woman in the raccoon coat step out of a yellow cab on Eighty-first, a wide, busy street that cut through the park. She said something to one of the doormen and was permitted to go inside. Her hair was pinkish blond. At first Hendrik had assumed it was a trick of the sunlight, but he soon realized he was mistaken and that, indeed, her hair was pink. She had left the Beresford a few hours earlier. He’d waited for her, smoking in the cold. He had to see her once more, to be sure.

He was sure now. She was Juliana Fall. He had seen her smile and her eyes. She could be no one else.

All at once the cigar tasted bitter. It was a Havana, his only extravagance. Johannes Peperkamp had given Hendrik his first cigar when he was still just a boy, and he’d choked on the smoke and vomited, embarrassing himself in front of the older friend he’d so badly wanted to impress. Hendrik had long since stopped worrying about trying to impress anyone. All that interested him was survival. His judgment of character and his ability to size up a situation were quick and accurate, and over the years those abilities had helped him stay alive. As he grew older, he found himself becoming increasingly dependent on his instincts. He could rely no longer upon the physical strength or the quickness of youth—or with his whitening blond hair and age-toughened, wrinkling skin, on its appearance. What he had was experience. Instincts.

His instincts now were telling him to run. He would need only to disappear, as he had many times in the past. It was a particular skill of his. He could do it.

He threw down the cigar and stamped it out with the heel of his boot. Then he turned around and walked through the stone gate into the park. My instincts, he thought, be damned.

Juliana Fall, aka J.J. Pepper, let the hot water of the shower rinse the last remnants of the pink mousse from her hair, and it felt as if a part of herself were being sucked down the drain. You’re not J.J.! Yes, but wasn’t J.J. real? Hadn’t Len kissed J.J. on the cheek and hadn’t the crowd at the Club Aquarian applauded J.J.?

J.J. existed. She was an aberration, perhaps, but she did exist. She had even taken over an entire bedroom in Juliana’s sprawling, elegant apartment. It was decorated twenties-style, and the closet and drawers brimmed with vintage clothes and jewelry from between the two World Wars. J.J. fare. Juliana seldom was seen in anything but the latest designs from the collections of top designers.